Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Ventura believes Bush responsible for Sept. 11

Jesse Ventura tackles ‘American Conspiracies’March 9: Jesse Ventura, former wrestler and one-time governor of Minnesota, discusses his theories about government cover-ups, included in his new book, “American Conspiracies,” with TODAY’s Ann Curry.

Former Minnesota governor says Bush administration tied to attacks

In his new book, “American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us,” former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura begins an investigative journey to prove that there is more to our national history than the government wants us to know. In this excerpt, he writes about an alleged 9/11 cover-up.

Chapter 12: What really happened on September 11?

The incident: On September 11, 2001, four airplanes were hijacked on American soil and crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

The official word: The 19 hijackers were all fanatic Muslim terrorists linked to al-Qaeda and its ringleader, Osama bin Laden.

My take: Our government engaged in a massive cover-up of what really happened, including its own ties to the hijackers. Unanswered questions remain about how the towers were brought down, and whether a plane really struck the Pentagon. The Bush Administration either knew about the plan and allowed it to proceed, or they had a hand in it themselves.

I was in my third year as Minnesota’s governor on September 11, 2001. After the devastation of the Pentagon being hit and the Twin Towers falling, I put the National Guard on alert and secured some of our public buildings. The following Sunday morning, we were the first state to hold a memorial for the nearly 3,000 victims. More than 40,000 people showed up on the front lawn of the State Capitol, while a steady rain fell. I’ll never forget Native American shamans beating drums alongside honor guards who represented the police and firefighters and military.

It still chokes me up to think about it. Looking out on hundreds of flags fluttering in the breeze, I remember saying at the end of two hours: “We will promote good against evil. And finally, we will together restore our sense of freedom by conquering this enemy!”

I never wanted to believe anything different than what our government told us about that tragic day. But here is what John Farmer, a Senior Counsel for the 9/11 Commission who drafted the original report, has to say in a new book: “At some level of the government, at some point in time ... there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”

What more do we need? Are we willing to live with another lie to go with the Warren Report, the Iran-Contra cover-up, and many other “official” stories?

I certainly never expected to think that elements of the Bush Administration were complicit with the enemy. Today, though, I am convinced that some people inside our government knew the attack was going to happen and allowed it to come to pass — because it furthered their political agenda.

I don’t necessarily believe that they orchestrated it themselves, although the door is definitely open to that. I say this after expending many hours researching things about the official story that don’t add up, and interviewing a number of witnesses with firsthand knowledge that contradicts what we were told. As a patriotic American, I say this with a heavy heart — and with an outrage that really knows no words. But it’s something we, as a nation, must come to terms with. Otherwise, it could happen again.

From day one, there was something that puzzled me. You had four airplanes being hijacked on the same morning. Maybe the first one snuck by the radar — but the next three? I’d been inside air traffic control, where you’ve got a dozen people watching every plane in their sector. They know what direction all the aircraft are supposed to be going, and here were four planes going directly opposite of their normal flight path. But we’re supposed to believe that no alarm bells went off anywhere, so no fighter jets got scrambled to intercept the planes. Was everybody asleep at the switch? How could the FAA and our air defenses experience such a miserable failure?

I want to tell you a short story about a guy named Charles Lewis, who my writing colleague Dick Russell interviewed recently in Southern California.

Until two months before September 11, Lewis had worked at LAX as the Quality Control Manager for Kiewit Pacific Construction on its Taxiway “C” project. A large part of his duties involved security in the Airport Operations Area, or AOA. There he got to know employees of various agencies — the LA World Airport Police, the LAPD, California Highway Patrol, the FBI, U.S. Customs, and others.